


Guillotine

by divisionten



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Post Persona 5 Royal, Post-Canon, The Velvet Room (Persona Series), goro grows up, persona 5 royal true ending spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:02:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24081757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/divisionten/pseuds/divisionten
Summary: For the first time in Igor's infinite existence... a Persona did not wish to be fused.(Contains Persona 5 Royal True Ending spoilers)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 94





	Guillotine

**Author's Note:**

> I loved my last fic so much I wanted to do another. I'll also happily listen to prompt requests, though no guarantees I'll fill them.

His breaths came in shallow and ragged, as though his lungs were bound in chains.

It took him a second to realize that he **_was_**. His hands were lashed behind his back, and his body wrapped in thick, blue fabric with the weight of chains over that. Moving his head, he realized it was trapped in some sort of vice. Before he had a moment to scream out, he heard a thunk and the sound of metal sliding down on something oiled.

In the final fleeting moment before the blade swung down, he realized he was in a guillotine.

* * *

The machine screamed, the sick sound of metal sliding down metal frozen almost as fast as it had started.

He heard a thud and felt a force shudder through the thing locking his head in place. Someone must have kicked it to try and get it moving again. The sound was followed by a ripcord and the thrum of something mechanical.

Akechi screamed.

* * *

“Terribly sorry,” Igor said, peering at him from his desk while an Alice in Wonderland knockoff worked to un-bind him.

Akechi spat. “What are you trying to pull?” Something tugged at his memory and it was like a light switch has fizzled to life in his brain.

“Wait. I remember. You’re Lavenza. You spoke with us in Shujin in January. But they took care of Maruki. This shouldn’t be.”

“ ** _They_**?” Lavenza asked curiously as she helped him stand. He wore his old high school uniform, but when he looked at himself in the polished shine of the half-fallen guillotine blade, his face looked a bit… indistinct. Almost plasticky, like they caked on too much makeup for an interview, but when he touched his glove to his face, it came back clean.

He pulled it off to test a theory.

“My scar.”

“Hm?” Igor asked, from his perch, barely giving Akechi a glance.

“My **_scar_** ,” Akechi repeated. “I have a large burn scar on my left hand from when I was in a foster home.” He held it up, angling the perfectly clear- nay, **_rubbery_** skin to the Velvet Room attendants. “Or, at least, I **_should_**. **_So_**. They have defeated Maruki and things are as they should be. I am dead.”

“That is… shall we say a bit more complicated than that,” Igor replied calmly.

“Enlighten me.”

Igor breathed a long, low exhale. “This might take some time. Please, take a seat.”

Akechi blinked, and where there had only been one seat behind Igor’s desk before, there now stood a second facing it from the other side. Akechi sat opposite, a bit arrogantly taking up as much space as he could muster.

“First, child. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“You don’t believe we’ve met, and you’re having me executed. Nice ship you run, Igor.”

A moment of confusion swept the undying creature’s face, followed by realization. “Ah. So you’re the other Trickster the God of Chaos bestowed power upon, using my name and face.”

“But not your voice,” Akechi replied, perceptively.

“You seem unsurprised.”

Akechi stretched his hand out to Lavenza, then covered it back up with his glove. “You were locked away and the person I got my Persona from was some false god. I’ve gotten the cribbed notes of the affair from your attendant as well as a fr- an **_acquaintance_**.”

“Ah, good, then I have no need to provide exposition.”

“You certainly do,” Akechi said, voice almost at a whisper. “You were trying to **_kill_** me.”

“Hardly,” Igor said airily. “Though, now that I’ve seen what you’re aware of, it would certainly seem as such.”

Akechi raised a violently manicured eyebrow. “So, what were you doing then? This isn’t a purgatory room. I don’t think you reincarnate the dead from here either.”

“You… do not know?”

“Would I be asking if I did?”

“You are a Trickster and yet…? Dear me. Lavenza was merely keeping her skills sharp for the next Trickster to come.”

“Which is?” Akechi asked, growing more and more impatient.

Lavenza stepped forward. “Master, our honored guest never formed enough bonds to make use of the service. Honored guest, the guillotines are used to fuse the essences of two personas into one newer being. Do you remember when you received your own power? Was I there?”

“No, just two aggressive children in shorts.”

Lavenza pointed to the two guillotines behind her. “Justine. Caroline,” before pointing to herself.

“Lavenza,” Akechi interjected with understanding. “So that’s how Akira gained new Persona. He destroyed the old to bring forth the new. So, what? That… **_no_**.”

Akechi blinked, stood up, and walked back to the still-busted guillotine to look at his face.

“Personas can talk,” he said aloud to no-one in particular. “And they’re bits of collective unconscious.”

He turned back to Igor. “So… Goro Akechi is dead. I’m not, because **_I’m not him_**. I’m what society remembers of him, all the sharp edges removed. I’m the television embodiment of a brilliant child detective. Just as our Personae were all literary creations.”

Akechi inhaled and looked down at the other body-bagged creature wrapped in chains. “And who, might I ask, was I to be fused with?”

Lavenza looked a bit sheepish as she slid the thing out from the guillotine’s hold, undoing its bonds.

“Arséne.” Akechi knelt and held out a hand. The creature grasped it, and, with a little flap of its wings, righted itself.

“We should have already become one,” it intoned, halfway between annoyed and bored. “Our next master awaits their mask.”

“You’re just giving up on your master that easy?” Akechi asked in shock at the towering beast in coattails.

“No. He is done. He has completed his task. But the world yet turns. While this enemy has been defeated, another will eventually fill its place. As Yaldabaoth did, then that doctor,” Arséne nodded slightly at Akechi. “My job is done. Perhaps…”

The top-hatted demon of a beast looked at the frozen guillotines. “Perhaps yours is not. Fate has a funny way of guiding us all sometimes.”

“I’d rather be dead,” Akechi spat. Arséne did not look surprised.

“You have not been within the consciousness of Man for very long,” Arséne admitted. “Your mind is of the boy you represent, and not the piece of humanity it expects of you.”

“Expects of me,” Akechi said with venom. “That’s what this has all been. Expectations.”

Goro looked down at his hands, flinging the gloves to the floor. Plastic. Everything was rubberized like a doll, sanded down to what people saw on TV.

“Bet I’m a healing and holy type too,” Akechi hissed.

The silence spoke volumes.

“Fine. Kill me then,” Akechi snarled, holding out his arms as if he were to be cuffed. “Maybe I’ll actually be useful for once.”

Lavenza wouldn’t meet his eye. “I cannot.”

Akechi stomped to the girl half his size and reached to grab her collar, hitting only air. “And why the **_hell_** not?”

“Because you do not wish to go. The world will not let you sink back into its subconscious.” She pointed to the broken guillotine. “Do you trust me, honored guest?”

“No, but I’m willing to listen.”

Lavenza picked her chainsaw up from off the floor, pulling the ripcord. “Oh, Persona from the sea of souls, I am wrong, and you will be born anew, or…”

With no malice on her face, she walked to Akechi, revving the tool again. “Shall we?”

* * *

Lavenza stared, wide eyed. She’d closed her eyes and sighed as she’d hefted the chainsaw above her head, expecting the spatter before the persona coalesced into goo, awaiting its other half to be born anew.

Instead, the roaring blade bounced off Akechi’s skull, the kickback wrenching it from her hands. It skittered on the stone floor, leaving a gash, before the safety clicked and the blades froze, teeth chipped, never to be used again.

“I believe you owe me an apology,” Arséne said, peering at the confused high schooler.

“So what? You dress me in blue and I work down here?” Akechi asked incredulously.

“We could have that arranged,” Igor said with a slight nod. “At least until you are called.” In an instant, Akechi was in polished black shoes, Velvet Room blue slacks and waistcoat with golden buttons, a golden long sleeve button down, black kid gloves, and a hat that sat awkwardly left of center.

“Maybe I should forego the headwear,” Igor said, sadly, as it disappeared. “Not everyone can pull off the look.”

“Speak for yourself,” Akechi muttered. Lavenza handed him a broom from nowhere.

“You can start by sweeping up the broken metal and stone,” she said, almost a hair of Caroline in her voice. “When you’re done, we’ll need a suitable persona to fuse with Arséne, so you’re on research duty. Then we fix the guillotines and take care of that.”

“Have him help,” Akechi pointed at Arséne.

“You would make a man at the gallows perform janitorial duties?” Arséne was almost laughing at him.

Akechi huffed and began to sweep.

* * *

“Goro.”

Akechi looked up from his book. He’d had a lot of time to read in this place, and he watched as it slowly morphed from a prison to something… indistinct. Sometimes it was an elevator, endlessly falling. Sometimes it was a limousine- he liked those days (or periods of time, days made no sense here)- mostly because he didn’t have to clean. He could raid the minibar for a lemonade and relax into the plush cushions with another book that materialized from nothing at all. Sometimes the room was an aquarium, the blue not from the room itself but from the sea raging outside the tiny bubble they resided, a bubble with no entrances or exits.

It was quiet, and despite the little tasks, nobody demanded anything of him.

“Yes, Master?” Akechi didn’t recall when he switched terms, but it felt right and not at all uncomfortable. The room was a solid prison today, same as when he’d arrived. He hoisted himself off the cot from which he was reading and unlocked his cell with the snap of a finger. He didn’t need to be locked within it, and very much scoffed at the symbolism, but it served as a loose marker to Lavenza and Igor that he was too absorbed to be bothered unless it was actually important.

“Your friend. The other Trickster. He is leaving Tokyo today. He will come here one final time and then this room shall be closed to him forever.”

Akechi raised an eyebrow. “Should I make myself scarce? I can read in the upper c-“

“No,” Igor said, cutting him off hand holding aloft a golden key on a braided indigo cord. “You will make yourself scarce because I am kicking you out.”

Akechi stared, dumbfounded. “But I!”

“You have done nothing wrong, child, much the opposite. The problem lies in the public. They continue to tell stories of pixies and angels, of Raphael and Ganesha. They have stopped telling stories of **_you_**. Soon, there will be no memory for you to be.”

“Public opinion moves on quick,” Akechi said, with a sad smile.

“Indeed. But all is not lost. I send you out, back with Man. If even one person should think fondly of you today, your humanity will be restored. Consider it both a parting gift and the effect of the other Trickster collapsing this place. Make these twenty-four hours count, or not. The rest is up to you.”

Before Akechi had the chance to protest, he found himself in a small back alley, still in his stuffy indigo garb. Quickly, he patted himself and stepped towards the street.

Shibuya. He was in Shibuya. And now he had to make a choice.

He walked through the throng of people enjoying spring weather- at least a month in the real world must have passed- before realizing he was invisible. He wasn’t walking though anyone- thank goodness- but it was as though there was a force field around him. Nobody paid him any attention at all. Frowning, he walked towards the station and, of course, saw a familiar face.

Akira seemed to be heading with purpose from the Tekyu building towards Central Street, equally oblivious to Akechi.

Akechi tailed him. First, he went into the airsoft shop, and said good-bye to the owner, getting a bear hug so immense his spine popped. Next, he froze in front of the spot Akechi had arrived from.

His spirit was visiting the Velvet Room, Akechi mused. He inhaled. Nobody could see or interact with him. Akira would have made some comment by now, or the shop clerk, and he wasn’t exactly dressed in a way that didn’t scream odd.

Akechi fiddled with his now-unneeded kid gloves.

How was he supposed to make anyone remember him if they’d all moved on?

Did he even want to?

 ** _Yes_**.

Yes, he did.

His month in the Velvet Room had given him a scrap of perspective. He could be reborn anew. Only on his own terms, though.

He took off one of his gloves and shoved it in Akira’s coat pockets before his soul returned to his body and walked off.

Now, it was out of his hands.

* * *

Akechi had tailed Akira for the rest of the day, if only because he had nothing else he could do. He settled into a booth at LeBlanc for the night, listening to Akira and Morgana chatter upstairs. He didn’t need sleep or food, but both sounded comforting all the same.

He had twelve hours to go.

* * *

Akechi followed Akira to the station the following morning, confused by the clearly-not-police in pursuit, laughing at its absurdity. Some of Shido’s lackeys were still active, it seemed.

Akira scanned his Shinkansen ticket while Akechi deftly jumped over the turnstile, something he’d wanted to do for years.

He had, by all accounts, about ninety minutes left. Akira pulled out his ticket to look at his seat assignment, and Akechi frowned, peering to take a peek. He could sneak on the train and wrestle into a vacant seat, or he could watch it from the tracks opposite.

If he did get his humanity back before time eroded, he’d prefer to do so in Tokyo.

“I… suppose this is goodbye then, Akechi said, reaching out one last time to pat the pocket where he’d shoved the glove. “You know, for a mortal enemy and a rival, you were… pretty shit, honestly.”

Akechi slowly let his hand down, before running off to the opposite track, not looking back once.

Akira blinked, like a bulb went off in his head. He shifted his duffle bag.

“Airhead!” Morgana hissed, “You want me to get seasick all over your PJ’s?”

“Rival?”

“What now?”

“Nothing. Don’t know why I…” Akira blinked and patted his pocket. “His **_glove_**.”

“What **_now_**?”

“Akechi threw his glove at me last November, challenged me to a duel.”

“Weird kid.”

“I still have it.”

“I’ll say it again. Weird kid. You too. Now get on your train before you leave us both behind.”

* * *

“Excuse me, sir,”. Akechi whipped his head around, standing face-to-face with a tired salaryman. “You’re standing too close to the line.”

Akechi broke out in laughter, looking down at himself. Gone was the blue, back was the brown. He even had his suitcase in one gloved hand.

“Thank you, I don’t think we want any accidents, do we?”

Akechi grinned as the Shinkansen opposite pulled from the station, before slinking off the platform and into the thrumming mass that was Shibuya.


End file.
